Drie Fonteinen Herfst

Besides being hard to pronounce, the Drie Fonteinen Herfst is one geuze out of a set of four. Armand, the owner and blender and mostly everything else at Drie Fonteinen, created one geuze named for each season. Each was priced quite a bit higher than the normal geuze because I believe he was using this set to fund creating a new brewery. Regardless, they were all fancy blends using the best barrels according to him and people seemed to really, really like them. Jo and I picked up two of the four when we visited Belgium last year and boy am I glad I did.

For those that don't know, official, proper geuze is a blend of one, two, and three year old lambics. Some breweries cheat that definition but definitely not Drie Fonteinen. Musty, oaky nose with a little hint of vanilla. Body was tart and a little bitter with a nice sour finish. Pretty dry, but not empty as there was a little sweetness.

While my recollection of their normal geuze could be off since it has been a while, I felt like this one was a little more bitter. More like Cantillon in that respect. Still, this was delicious and pretty awesome and totally worth the cost of entry. I mean, we only paid 24 euros so like $32. Considering their normal geuze is around $20 in the states, pretty worth it. Just a delicious, delicious beer. Jo really liked it too.

Deschutes Chasin' Freshies and 500th post

Well, this isn't nearly as epic as I expected my 500th post to be but whatever, I'll just have to reach 1000 and do something interesting for that. Right? Totally! So Chasin' Freshies is a fresh hop IPA from Deschutes given to me by my brother in law. I'm not sure when it was released, but we drank it the day before the best by date arrived. So I win this round, Deschutes, but just barely.

Bright, juicy nose. Very inviting. The body basically tasted like passion fruit to me with a light bitterness in the finish. Very pleasant even if it was at the tail end of its freshness. I don't know how well this would hold up past its best by date, but it was certainly still good before it. Very interesting flavors in this and quite enjoyable.

Night of Lambics!

My wife wanted to open something fun this past Sunday and I've had these two lambics in the refrigerator for a while so I figured it was time. The first we opened was the Drie Fonteinen Oude Kriek. I bought this a while ago though not so long that I expected to see a 2007 date on the bottle. Five year old kriek? Sure, why not!

Labor Day Bar Crawl

It's Saturday, my wife's out of town, I'm alone. So what do I decide to do? What? Not that, sicko. I decide to do a bar crawl going to Farmer's Cabinet -> Varga Bar -> Hawthorne's Cafe -> Devil's Den. Now, I guess it's weird that I decided to bar hop by myself for hours on end, but I really enjoy sitting at bars, talking to bartenders and trying new things. I guess I'm a weird dude and I'm okay with that.

First stop was the Farmer's Cabinet. I haven't been back since my awesome birthday dinner and knew it had been too long. At 11:30am, it wasn't particularly busy which was nice. There was only one other dude at the bar plus the bartender. I started with a glass of De Molen Cease & Desist, also known as Disputin, a Russian Imperial Stout.

Beerschooled - Sours Class

After the great intro to homebrewing class by Beerschooled, I knew I'd go to another as long as the topic was interesting to me.  I finally got my chance when they announced a sours tasting class.  The Hulmeville Inn was hosting a Cicerone exam proctored by certified Cicerone Nicole Erny and so Jeff (beerschooled Jeff, not Hulmeville Inn owner Jeff.  So many Jeffs) took advantage of that and asked her to teach a class on sours with a little bit on Belgium.  I arrived at the Hulmeville Inn a bit early so I got a glass of Rogue Shakespeare Stout, an oatmeal stout, to pass the time.